Bill has been painting nature subjects since he was a child in southern Indiana. He gained his early inspiration from the work of John James Audubon; and, over time developed his own unique painting style. Today, he is considered one of America’s leading painters of birds.

In the early 1960s, following his study at the Cincinnati Art Academy, Bill took his first professional job as an illustrator and art director for the Gibson Greeting Card Company. A few years later, he left the greeting card business to co-write and illustrate a field guide of waterfowl of North America. This project served as a launching pad for his most important and famous project, published in cooperation with Frame House Gallery, in 1974. It was The Waterfowl of North America book, an elephant-sized folio of 42 paintings of the wild swans, geese and ducks known to nest on the North American continent. The book retailed for $1,000 and it sold out quickly. Today, the book and prints from the book are highly treasured by collectors.

Following his success with The Waterfowl of North America book, Bill moved to a new phase in his career by creating hundreds of paintings for a series of books on state birds, including The Birds of Indiana, The Birds of Illinois, The Birds of Ohio and The Birds of Kentucky. Later, he illustrated Arthur Cleveland Bent’s classic work on woodpeckers of North America. Twenty five of his original paintings are part of the Indiana University Art Museum’s permanent collection. Recently, Bill’s work was featured in an important new book, Wildlife Art, from Quarry Books. Today, many of Bill’s paintings are in private collections, and several have been shown in museums, including the Smithsonian. Bill lives in Nashville, Indiana.

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